


made this place for you

by pissard



Series: motion sickness [3]
Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissard/pseuds/pissard
Summary: Theo is back in New York and things come together then begin to unravel
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Series: motion sickness [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1499468
Comments: 6
Kudos: 104





	made this place for you

> _I’ll give you my heart to make a place  
> _ _  
> __for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger._
> 
> _[...]_
> 
> _a place for you to love me._
> 
> _if this isn’t the kingdom i don’t know what is._
> 
> _[...]_
> 
> _we are all going forward. none of us are going back._

_-snow and dirty rain,_

_Crush_ \- Richard Siken 

* * *

  
  
  


“You’re looking better,” Hobie said to him, over breakfast.

Theo looked up from his coffee, the New York Times spread on the table and shared between them. He sat his mug down and hummed softly and leaned back in his chair. He supposed he did feel better. 

“Thanks?”

Hobie chuckled and inclined his head. “Simply making an observation, Theo,” he said and Theo couldn’t help but smile back in response. “You’re getting close to twenty-five now.” Theo winced and Hobie chuckled again.

When Theo looked up from the article he’d been half reading about a new non-profit theatre space that was opening in Brooklyn’s lower east side he caught the tail end of how Hobie had really been looking at him. What really had been unspoken in Hobie’s words. _You aren’t taking those drugs anymore, are you?_ Had been silently asked and answered by Hobie’s own assumptions correctly.

No, Theo was no longer taking the Oxys but he was still drinking when his hands started to shake everyday at three every afternoon or rolling a fresh joint whenever he felt his vision beginning to swim. He’d even been tempted a few times since by Boris to do tabs of LSD as they fucked. 

If he really and truly were honest with himself he believed his ‘looking better’ lent itself more to entirely different things then just weaning himself off of Oxys but he couldn’t own up to that to Hobie. Not yet.   
  
The days back in New York passed mostly in a daze. In and out of routine. Money was tighter, maybe even more than it had been when he’d first taken to helping at Hobart and Blackwell. Clients did come in, though, their reputation rejuvenated, but it was just enough to keep them afloat.

To Hobie it seemed business as usual. He was, as ever, effervescent as spring blossomed in New York City and turned the days into sparkling warmth. Popchyk was still old but doing better with the warmer weather and, for now, things seemed to have settled into a blissful okayness. 

Theo did not wish for anything else. 

So much of his life had been chaotic turmoil that even though the bland mediocrity of ‘ _everything is perfectly fine_ ’ almost unsettled him to his core he desperately clung to it like a drowning man lost at sea. Had he ever experienced such stability? He was unsure. Perhaps not. Maybe for those brief two years in Vegas and even then, just barely, and he had spent them upsetting the boat by descending into addiction before finishing puberty. 

It was thoughts like these that occupied his mind as he tried to read a battered copy of Siddhartha, leaned over the front desk of the shop and perched so precariously on his stool that it was by sheer miracle he hadn’t slipped off it already. He really wanted to go downstairs and grab a drink. It was only by a repeated mantra of just one more minute until the clock hit the next hour that he hadn’t gotten up to go and get one. The sign over the door had been turned to open for over two hours but not a soul had walked in since then, so by all rights he could’ve had one safely and been back by now without having missed a thing.

He stayed firmly in place however and continued to not read a single line of his book. 

The pages were only just beginning to shake.

The bell over the door chimed and Theo jerked in surprise and his tenuous balance on the stool was lost and he had to catch himself on the edge of the counter. His saving grace was that he was hidden from sight by a massive armoire from the front door so whoever just walked in didn’t witness him making a fool of himself.

He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Welcome,” Theo called and dog-eared where he was in his book and set it aside.

“Hullo, Potter,” came the familiar, drawling reply and Theo’s head shot up, eyes wide in surprise. 

Boris was wearing a thin, black raincoat with his hands tucked into the pockets and his usual combo of dark shirt and dark jeans, looking as he always did. _Too good._ Theo drank the sight of him in hungrily. It had been so long since they’d seen each other. So long since Theo had finished literally paying for his mistakes and had returned back to New York. Boris had been reluctant to follow him back and though they had spoken often since then, there had never been any talk about whether they’d see each other again. 

It had hurt but Theo knew he had no place to demand things from Boris. 

The sight of him was enough to have Theo grinning and he was moving around the counter to grab Boris by the shoulders.

“You fucking asshole,” he accused and then drew Boris in, unabashed, for a kiss. They were in plain sight of both the street and the workshop below if Hobie were to come upstairs but Theo didn’t care. His heart was hammering hard in his chest exhilarated to see Boris again. 

Boris went into the kiss easily, cupping Theo’s cheek. They drew apart after just a moment but remained in the same space. 

“Always such a foul mouth,” Boris said with his wry grin and Theo wanted to kiss him again but the commotion had drawn Hobie upstairs.

“Ah, we have company I see,” he said and actually sounded pleased. 

The shape of Boris is strange in their small kitchen. He’s been there before and Theo’s brain knows this and remembers this but it still has trouble putting him to place there. Mostly it’s because his heart is racing in his chest as Hobie moves around the kitchen behind him, making tea. Boris is sitting across from Theo, slouched in the chair, his raincoat removed to expose his plain black t-shirt, which somehow looks devastatingly handsome as it stretched across his broad chest. There was a smug look on his face and Theo hated it. 

Theo tried to look anywhere else. 

“What brings you to New York, young Boris?”

“Ah, just business.” Boris gratefully accepted the steaming mug of tea that was handed to him with a grateful smile at Hobie, all the good manners he did not actually possess the second Hobie’s gaze turned on him. “Thank you so much, Mr. Hobart.”

“Oh nonsense, it’s Hobie, please. Now, what business is it that you do, exactly?”

Boris’ expression didn’t falter for even a second and he didn’t miss a beat before he answered: “Real estate.”

“My goodness,” Hobie replied, looking impressed. He glanced at Theo, gaze implying he was disappointed in Theo for having never stated this in the first place. It was because this was a lie. Or maybe it wasn’t? Maybe Boris was in real estate now, for all that Theo knew. Theo took a careful sip of his tea and shrugged. 

“Yes, business is very good, but I don’t work in American real estate, only Europe,” Boris explained and gestured expansively with his free hand. “Why I am not in States very often, though I am looking to expand here. Hard market to break into.”

“So I’ve heard,” Hobie replied thoughtfully, “though you have a good friend here who could help you get your foot in the door.”

Boris laughed at this as if any of what Hobie had said was funny and Theo huffed. Hobie watched in bemusement at Boris’ shaking shoulders. It wasn’t a joke that Theo was in on—at least, not that he was aware of and when he asked later, when they were stretched out in the hotel bed, Boris just laughed at him again. 

“Foot in the door,” Boris said by way of explanation and Theo looked at him askance. 

“What?” 

“It is funny thing to say.” 

Theo snorted and shook his head, turning away to hide the stupid grin that split across his face as Boris began laughing again and chased after him. “No, no,” Boris insisted and took hold of his cheeks. Their mouths crashed together and it was a painful meeting of teeth rather than lip and Theo half heartedly shoved Boris away. 

It was a delight to have Boris back in his life again as a physical presence. For a while, Theo felt like he was walking on air. For a while, things were good. 

Yet, the nightmares came more often. Or maybe they didn’t. Theo wasn’t sure. It was probably the same as it had always been but there was no stupor of blind addiction to keep him from being as aware of them in the morning.

Or maybe it wasn’t that Boris was there. 

Boris wasn’t there every time and it was the ones that Boris’ wasn’t there that stood out so vividly in his mind. The blind panic as cold sweat clung to his skin and the dull stench of fear clung to the air and the explosion still rung in his ears. For the first five seconds he would search for Boris and panic all over again when he couldn’t find him and remember all at once that Boris was probably clear across the world. 

When Boris was there it is an exact repeat of almost any night in Vegas. Boris would grab him around the middle and shush him quietly in a multitude of languages, voice firm and familiar, pulling him back down to the mattress and urging him back to sleep.   
  
The nights he’s alone he missed Boris so much it’s like he’s missing a limb. They’d been seeing so much of each other in the past year that Theo had gotten used to Boris being there more often than not for his nightmares. He’d begun to keep track in his diary on the nights when he’d have nightmares and had just by chance mentioned it to Boris when he’d called Boris. 

“You should call me.”

“Call you?” Theo repeated, dubious. 

“Yes, after your nightmares.”

Theo stared out the window of the shop and blinked. “Yeah I mean, I guess, I could… I wouldn’t have much to say and what if you’re--”

“It’s okay, Potter,” Boris said with laughter obvious in his voice. “You can call me. If I can’t answer I will call you back right away. Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll call you.”

Pippa visits in the height of spring and it is the first time that Theo has seen her since her letter. At first he doesn’t even know what to say to her or even how to smile correctly at her. She efficiently diffused any awkwardness between them with a hug. 

“I’m happy to see you,” she said after they pulled apart, her hand lingering on his arm. She smelled of the fresh air, sweet and clean. Theo had, for once, not felt as though he were about to come apart at the seams after seeing her or touching her and did not know what to do with himself about it. Moving on was probably for the better but it left him empty and bereft. Lost.

The second day of Pippa’s visit Theo came down into the kitchen to discover Boris sitting at the table with both her and Hobie. He stopped on the bottom step for a moment, almost in shock, until Boris spotted him and beamed. 

“ _Zolottse_!”

“Look who came in just off a red eye,” Hobie said, turning around to look at Theo and he was so pleased that Theo’s heart hammered in his chest, uncertain. Pippa herself looked mostly caught somewhere between confused amusement, an often symptom of someone unused to having to deal with a sleep deprived Boris.

Theo crossed the room to the french press sitting and waiting with fresh coffee, ignoring Boris’ hand that caught him by the wrist. “No good morning, sleeping beauty?” He glanced back with a half hearted sneer and Boris chuckled and let go of Theo’s wrist. 

It was an oddly domestic morning with the four of them over breakfast---Hobie’s tomatoes and egg toast and a good portion of coffee for all of them---that left Theo feeling just slightly unsettled for the rest of the day. Pippa had errands for the morning but wanted to meet for lunch and Boris’ eagerly agreed, much to Theo’s surprise. Once she and Hobie had gone, he turned to Boris, who stood at the sink washing the dishes and humming.

“We didn’t have to meet Pippa for lunch.”  
  
“I want to,” Boris replied and glanced back at Theo as if he’d said something silly. “Rude to say no, besides.”

Theo had something to say about Boris and he sudden provocatively not not be rude to people but he bit back on it. Instead he let Boris take him back to his hotel and fuck him on the bathroom floor. His knees ached terrible afterward but the deep sensation of satisfaction was so worth it he didn’t have it himself to complain. 

They met Pippa for lunch at a small bistro by the Park and Boris looked striking in a light coat and a dark grey shirt--the lightest color Theo had seen him wear in so long, that Theo ached to kiss him. He didn’t, though, and kissed Pippa’s cheek instead. 

“What is it you do, Boris?” Pippa asked, when they’d settled with wine and their meals. There was a strange edge to her question that had Theo looking up from his salad. 

Boris was oblivious--Pippa was not his old friend after all. He looked over at her with a dry smirk. “Real estate,” he shot back because it was his favorite answer now after Hobie had reacted so favorably.

Pippa just looked skeptical for a moment, her fingers curled around the base of her wine glass as she steadily met Boris’ gaze. “Real estate,” she repeated back and then glanced at Theo. “That is why you travel so much?”

“Oh, no,” Boris replied back, oblivious as he went to his food. “I travel here to see my _zolottse_ but I do all my business in Europe.” 

It was as if the air had been sucked from the room and Theo stared down into his glass of wine, feeling Pippa’s gaze settle on him like a physical weight. 

“Ah, I see,” she replied and sounded fucking pleased with this answer. The conversation moved to movies or something after this. Theo couldn’t be sure because he answered only mechanically, the honesty of Boris’ imprinted in his brain for the rest of the conversation. 

Later, when Pippa was gone, and Theo sat on the hotel bed as he watched Boris’ pack, he finally caught his breath. “Did you mean it?”

Boris paused and glanced back at him, a shirt in his hands. “Hmm?”

“What you said to Pippa about coming here just to see me?”

Something passed over Boris’ face so quickly that Theo didn’t catch it. “I was only telling her what she wanted to hear,” he said without pause and continued to fold his shirt, eyes flicking up to meet Theo’s. 

Of course.

It was weeks later, when Hobie finally confronted him about it. 

“I hadn’t seen you so low before and I thought it was because of him but knowing what I know now it was because of the Goldfinch, wasn’t it?” Hobie asked and his eyes were so sad that Theo had difficulty meeting them.

“Yes.” 

“I thought as much. It’s different now. You’re much better. I hope you don’t mind me for saying so again or resent me for it. I don’t mean to say it to imply I have ever judged you for what you’ve done, Theo. I can never understand what you’ve struggled through. Pippa has actually had quite a few harsh words with me about it before.”

This shocked Theo to his core. Shame rose like bile inside him but it was undercut by the deep love for Pippa that he knew he would never be able to get over. It still burned him to his core like battery acid. Theo would never want to get over, if he was honest. He stared at the wood grain on the table between them, teeth digging into his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin. 

This conversation embarrassed him but he knew it was necessary. He knew these were things that needed to be said. Things Hobie needed to say, at least. Theo was fine to let things fester and turn to resentment until death. 

“I don’t know what to say. I’ve--Nothing of what I’ve gone through is Boris’ fault.”

“Oh I know. Goodness, God please don’t take it this way. That is not what I’m trying to say,” Hobie took a deep breath and paused to collect his thoughts for a moment before he continued. “I just, I meant to say I thought him coming back had been,” Hobie awkwardly cleared his throat, “that you two had had a bad break up once before that you’d never told me about and that maybe there were unresolved feelings there.” 

It was an interesting assumption and Hobie wasn’t far off but no, that hadn’t been why Theo was a complete fucked up wreck when Boris magically reappeared into his life. The real why’s and how’s didn’t matter, though, and he really and truly didn’t want to tell them to Hobie. 

“No. It wasn’t like that. We never dated,” Theo admitted. “Not as kids. We were just very close. We hadn’t dated until recently…” 

Dated was not the right word for anything he and Boris had ever done. What they were doing was just fucking but of course he couldn’t tell Hobie that (yet another thing he couldn’t). He hadn’t told Pippa that either and was too embarrassed when she’d looked at him with her warm eyes to be straightforward with her. Was he lying though or was he saying what he wished he and Boris was doing? He wasn’t sure it was that deep to be honest. 

Theo didn’t want to dissect it that much either. What Boris’ had said to Pippa came unbidden into his mind and he banished, unwanted. 

Hobie gave him a small, pleased look. Theo could barely face that, too. “As long as he makes you happy, Theo. I love Kitsey dearly but she didn’t make you laugh nearly as much as Boris does.”

This had Theo flushing because it was true. Kitsey and Theo were like milktoast. In many ways they had been a matched set. Both blonde, pale and freckled, both with pale grey eyes and both with the same distant, removed personality. Everything between them had been transactional when he reflected back on it now. It was depressing to think about but when he was lost in it at the time, so desperate to trick himself into thinking he really loved Kitsey, the drugs had made her disinterest desirable. Kitsey did not care, you can wallow in your addiction in peace. 

In Boris’ constant orbit, though, Theo feels more alive than he has in a long time. When Boris suddenly appears in the shop or when he texts that he is in town, it’s like Theo has come to life again. Each time it’s unexpected when Boris will appear but the steps are always the same: meet up, get drunk, fuck.

A time that should have been no different, of course, heralded the beginning of the end.

They start kissing in the elevator, Boris’ hand gradually creeping up under Theo’s jacket, who is doing his best to stoically ignore it by staring down his reflection in the doors in front of him. In his periphery he can just see Boris’ wicked grin to his right, and it’s all teeth, his lips already cherry red from the awful shots he’d tricked their flirty blonde bartender into giving them on the house. Theo’s mouth felt glued together from all the sugar in them and he knew Boris’ mouth was going to taste as sickly when he finally leaned in but he gave no resistance. 

He never could. 

By the time they’re out of the elevator, Boris’ has half of Theo’s coat off of him and a hand stuck down the back of Theo’s pants. If Theo wasn’t already so completely, utterly wasted he’d have presence of mind to be embarrassed but why bother? The hallway of the hotel is empty. There’s no one around to see them at three in the morning and they stumble down the crimson carpeted hallway until Theo’s back slammed into Boris’ door. 

How Boris’ managed to find it, Theo didn’t know, he just laughed stupid-drunk through the pain, his head thumping back against the door as he watched Boris’ fumble with the magnetic lock. 

“Borissss,” he groaned and hooked his fingers into the belt loops of Boris’ jeans to grind their hips together. Boris’ hissed through his teeth. “Boris you’re swiping it backwards.”

Boris cursed violently in Russian and finally the door clicked open and Theo was tumbling backwards with a laugh but Boris caught him by his tie. He gasped, laughing again but it’s quickly smothered by Boris’ mouth and Theo was sure he’d never tire of kissing Boris. 

They broke apart enough for Theo to take off his jacket completely and toss it onto the floor and in the morning he knew he’d probably be pissed off about that but right now he was just too fucked up. 

“Look at you, drunk slut,” Boris crooned as he grabbed Theo by his belt and then was pushing Theo backwards. The whole world dizzyingly tipped as Theo went backwards and landed onto the bed. 

Theo’s head spun as the world righted itself around him. He had not known the bed was that close behind him. “That’s me,” he agreed and stared up at Boris and blinked. Theo hooked his ankle around Boris’ knee and tugged. “I want to ride you.”

The pleased flush that bloomed on Boris’ face was exactly what Theo was looking for and Theo bit his lip, his dick throbbing in his pants. 

“Oh, _zolottse_ ,” Boris groaned and slid his hands up Theo’s thighs as he crouched down and began to undo Theo’s belt. “I love the way you think.”

They strip in quick efficiency of well practiced movements, even with the liquor doing its best to trip their hands. Theo cannot stop himself from stopping to kiss Boris after each piece of clothing he removed uncaring of where his mouth lands. A shoulder, just above Boris’ nipple the next time, and then his freshly bared hip. His kiss turns to a bite here but there is not much flesh to sink his teeth into as Boris is almost all muscle and bones. 

He’d still consume Boris bite by bite if given the chance, knowing full well it would be a satisfying meal regardless. Theo yanked Boris onto the bed to straddle his hips to pin him to the bed with both his weight and a burning gaze, hungry. 

Boris met his gaze with the familiar smug smirk, arms sprawled carelessly behind his head, across pristine white sheets. He was beautiful and devastating all at once. It hurt to look at him sometimes but Theo did not feel that pain now, too rendered stupid by liquor and he grinned carelessly back. 

“C’mon,” he groaned, pressing fingers to Boris’ mouth, which parted with first sharp teeth before a wet and wicked tongue met his two fingers. Theo dropped his head forward with a groan, fingers wrapped around his cock. He didn’t want this to be over too soon and wanted to come sitting on Boris’ cock. “Stop, Boris.” The sharp press of incisors again but Boris drooled obediently around Theo’s fingers and he drew them away to press into his asshole, making as quick work as he could to stretch himself open. 

It would be better with lube but he knew it was still packed away in Boris’ luggage and impatience won out in him, more important to be fucked now in his drunken stupor then to care about the pain of it later. Theo grit his teeth against the burn of the stretch as he worked his fingers and burned under Boris’ gaze. 

“Do you do this, without me?” Boris asked apropos to nothing. 

There was a small wrinkle between Theo’s brows. “No, I don’t,” he replied. The burn was beginning to lessen. 

“Not even when you’re lonely and thinking of me?” Boris’ hand wrapped around Theo’s cock and he jerked at the shock of it and groaned, eyes flying open. 

“Boris! No,” he snapped and gripped Boris’ wrist, annoyed. Theo didn’t know where these questions were coming from or what they were about. “I don’t.” 

Whatever Boris wanted he didn’t seem to get but dropped it and Theo leaned forward, drawing his fingers from inside himself to grip the sheets beside Boris’ shoulder. He steadied himself and took Boris’ cock in hand to slowly lower himself down with a gasp. The angle of it like this always felt like too much at first and the lack of lube only hurt for just a moment until the alcohol dulled it all away. Underneath him, Boris shuddered with a moan, hands dropped to grip at Theo’s knees, and Theo stared down at him. 

It was always a wonder to see how undone he could get Boris. Theo sat atop of Boris’ hips for just a moment, adjusting, feeling the sweat beginning to build between them before he finally started to move. Boris eagerly moved to meet him and put his hands on Theo’s hips to pull him down to meet each thrust. It was a nearly silent symphony of this between them as the desperation was fulfilled; just answering grunts and the sound of flesh meeting flesh.

Theo’s mouth dropped open as he rocked forward on his hips and held his hand out just as Boris reached up, their hands meeting halfway. Boris’ thighs were slick with sweat under his ass but Theo was still able to get a good rhythm going as he bounced up and down on Boris’ cock. The once unpleasant burn was familiar and sent a thrill up his spine and eventually abated into a dull pleasure at the base of his spine. 

Boris loosely threaded their fingers together and watched him with a dazed grin. It hadn’t taken Theo long to learn that Boris liked it best with him on top. This was a universal experience. Riding Boris was pretty exceptional as well. It felt good, sure, but being able to see the way his eyes went stupid when Theo squeezed his cock in just the right way or bounced his ass down? 

Pretty fucking great. 

“ _Ah_ \--Theo,” Boris groaned and Theo tightened the hold on his hand and couldn’t help but smile slightly. 

Like this Theo could feel the hitch in Boris’ breath, could feel the weighty in take of his breath as it shuddered through Boris’ lungs like it was Theo taking in the breath himself. He hunched over Boris and pinned their linked hands over his head as he slammed their hips together and the sound of their panting moans filled the room. 

“Boris,” Theo urged and buried the fingers of his other hand into the inky, sweaty curls on Boris’ head. He felt his toes curling as the head of Boris’ cock bumped against Theo’s prostate inside him. Sweat dripped off from the edge of Theo’s nose and onto Boris’ cheek.

Boris’ eyes fluttered open and their gazes connected and all at once there seemed to be little else outside of this. No reality beyond this hotel room or off of this hotel bed. All that mattered existed on this bed.

Theo cried out and took his cock in hand and in two swift strokes came in hot stripes across Boris’ stomach and chest. “Boris,” he whined again and Boris still fucked up into him but the thrusts were weak and shallow and shivering and Theo realized that Boris was coming. 

He groaned and slid sideways off of Boris and onto the pristine sheets they had ruined. The air was already cooling around them and beginning to stink of stale sex and Theo’s nose wrinkled against it. Boris was muttering something. 

“What?”

“No condom.”

Theo reached between his legs and felt the slick dribble of come between his thighs and thought, distantly, he would be pissed in the morning. About a lot of things. 

Like, no, he did not think about Boris when he masturbated. He did his best to think about Boris as little as possible when Boris was not here. It made the ache easier to deal with. The loss. Every time that Boris left it was like losing him. He felt stupid for it. 

What claim did he have to Boris? None. He was the other ‘woman.’ The greatest irony. Theo knew this mattered little as Boris clearly lived a life full of infidelities. Boris had many girlfriends scattered across many continents. This was not a thought that gave Theo comfort. 

When Boris was gone Theo did his best to not think of him, to not miss him. When Boris suddenly reappeared he pretended it was a gift, or told himself it was pretending, as it was not.   
  
Theo still thought of Boris, though. They called and texted and emailed constantly. He bought books for Boris and thought of movies they could see or restaurants to visit when Boris was in town. Boris was constantly on his mind. He did sit in his tub and stroke himself, head fallen back against the porcelain rim for long enough it would have a crick in it later, bringing himself to completion remembering the way Boris would look at Theo like he was beautiful. 

_This was not meant to last is,_ what he would tell himself after Boris left. _This is not sustainable.  
  
_ He just did not know where it would break. 

A half truth.

Theo knew where it would break: on him. His own miserable, self-sabotaging and destructive ways.

It had started like this:

The birthday party is unwanted but Theo knew he should be grateful for it. He had somehow managed to scrape together a few people who cared about him and Pippa would be there by some miracle. She had, apparently, orchestrated a majority of the entire event. Theo wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

He understood, somewhat, what she’d meant by her letter and what she’d about them being too much alike, because Theo sometimes thought the same thing about himself and Boris and not without resentment. Had she done this to them? Or had they done this to themselves? He didn’t know. 

The birthday party felt strange and Theo thought it would be more appropriate for them to hand him ‘ _Congratulations! You’re still sober!’_ cards instead of birthday cards but what did he know. The strangest of it all was that Boris had shown up. 

“I invited him,” Pippa said at Theo’s blank look after Boris had left them to go grab drinks. “Why wouldn’t I?”

It was this that had struck him most of all. Why wouldn’t she? There was an implication there that Theo did not understand and a look in her eyes that implied even more and it shook Theo to his core. Boris had been around enough that people were beginning to assume things about them and Theo had been too stupid to realize it. Why wouldn’t they?  
  
Boris was back with his drink in hand and Theo took it from him and downed it in one smooth gulp, much to Pippa’s shock and Boris’ bemusement. 

“All good?” Boris asked with a narrow look.

“I will be,” Theo replied and shouldered past him to get another drink. He couldn’t think about this now. The last thing he should be doing is embarrassing himself at his own birthday party by getting wasted but he doesn’t care, he felt as though he’d been cleaved open. 

The night progressed as thus: Theo drowning himself in more and more drinks while Boris gave him increasingly confused looks and their varied company either ignored it or knew little on how to deal with it in turn. 

It was choking to see Boris and Mrs. Barbour in the same room. To see her questioning gaze when Boris stood too close to him. Theo could already see the assumption in Kitsey’s eyes when she wished him a happy birthday, a done thing. 

He was surprised when he stumbled out half way through the night for a cigarette and Pippa followed out after him. They stood on the only dry part of the stair, hip and shoulders pressed together and watched the cabs trickle by in the downpour. 

“I just worry about you, Theo,” her voice was soft and Theo ached to touch her more and he stared resolutely at the end of his cigarette clutched between his fingers. Pippa’s shoulder brushed his as she uncrossed her arms and brushed her brassy hair from her face. “I know it isn’t my place I just--”

“It’s okay--”

“It isn’t, though.” Pippa insisted and Theo glanced sideways and could see her lashes were damp and he took a shaky inhale of his cigarette, the alcohol swimming in his head. He prayed to remember this later. “I can see why you love him but if it’s going to bring you back to the bottom.”

Theo didn’t know what to say to that or if there really was anything to say to that. Wasn’t he always at the bottom? 

He dropped his gaze back to the cigarette in his hands and then to the wet sidewalk. “He’s all I have, Pippa,” Theo said and knew he was weak for it. 

Pippa looked at him. “If he loves you back then he’d give it all up.” 

She gripped his elbow, her hands so small and delicate in the crook of his arm. He wanted to touch her back but still didn’t, knew he couldn’t, and then she was gone, back up into the house. For how much longer Theo stood there staring into the empty street, he didn’t know, but when the door opened again behind him, he somehow knew it was Boris. 

They were silent as Boris shuffled down the steps in front of him to crouch down and stare out at the wet street.

“You can’t just keep showing up randomly whenever the fuck you like, Boris.”

Boris looked up at him, dark brows furrowed. The look of hurt or shock in his eyes that Theo had been sickly hoping for was not there. It was like Boris had been expecting something like this. 

“You didn’t complain before but I guess it is because of your redhead this time, hm, no?” came Boris' scathing reply. He straightened up from his crouch against the railing and strode over to crowd into Theo’s space. Theo didn’t flinch back but his grip on the railing behind him tightened and nearly slipped, it was still slick from rain. 

“It’s stupid of you to pretend I am suddenly like dirty little secret,” Boris said and his voice had dropped an octave, aware of the party that happened just inside. “They all know how you truly are.”

This stung Theo and he did flinch back now, hand just slipping and Boris caught his elbow, and held him upright as the world swam around Theo’s vision. He was too drunk to properly fight about this but he knew how angry he was and he wanted to punch Boris but he was also too drunk to do that.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you, fuck you,” Boris mocked back and shoved Theo up the steps. Theo stumbled and went down onto the wet concrete, folding like a wet newspaper. There’d be a livid bruise on his left asscheek in the morning. 

Boris loomed over him and glared as he lit a fresh cigarette. “I am going, now,” he said as he flicked the zippo lid shut smartly and tossed it back at Theo. “If you want to get over yourself you can call me later.”

Theo watched him walk down the sidewalk across the watercolour smears of traffic lights and flashing neon on the slick sidewalk until he vanished from sight. A noxious tumble of regret and anger stirring nausea in his gut. In the morning the fight would only be a vague memory and a confusion as to why Boris was absent, unable to give adequate answers when asked by Pippa and Hobie when asked and ignoring their concerned glances. 

It was undeniably his own fault. His own insecurities bleeding through and rearing their ugly head when he was too drunk and too stupid to keep them in check. It was the failure of his father. The truest of inheritances. The pride and joy of the Deckers. 

An amalgamation of all his worst flaws in the moments it mattered most and most often in those moments Theo was either drunk or high or a combination of the two. He knew how stupid it had been to accuse Boris for showing up announced, as if Theo did not beg him to return with every glance or unspoken word. 

Boris was right because Theo had never pretended what they had between them was secret to anyone but Hobie or Pippa or Mrs. Barbour or even Kitsey even though at this point it had to be plainly obvious. It had been six months now if Boris showing up and of Theo dropping everything to spend however many precious hours they could glean together. It was Theo who was the fool. How could Pippa not assume things? How couldn’t anyone?

The real idiot here was Theo for wishing the assumptions were true and for knowing that the reality of it was far more disastrous. He sat on the precipice of his own ruin again and Pippa was right. Boris could bring him to the bottom again but not by returning to him and not by being so alike to him, his own dark reflection. No, if life were to truly catch up with them again, Theo knew it would be what would ruin him and he felt so weak for it. He had lost his mother, he had lost his father, he had lost his Goldfinch, and he had lost Pippa.

He could not stand to lose Boris and Theo knew he was close to it.

In the weeks after Theo’s birthday, he feels more hollow than he has since he first arrived in New York as a teenager. It wasn’t the first time Theo had felt utterly eviscerated by his own poor choices but it was the first time he’d felt stripped raw by it. 

There was nothing to balm his agony. The temptation to sink into old habits was so intense that Theo bit his nails bloody in the first week. An occasional drink or blunt did little to make him forget his own stupid choices and only served to make the misery easier to succumb to. 

The worst of it, though, was the nightmares. 

Those he couldn’t escape on his own. 

Every night Theo seemed to wake from one, hand reaching without thought for his phone to dial for Boris before reality came crashing back down that he was alone in this. In the first week, he tried to convince himself that this was how it was to be, his bleak forevermore, the playbook of the rest of his life as it were to stretch before him. His days hounded by the ghosts of his addictions and his nights rendered sleepless by his ineluctable trauma. 

It wouldn’t be the first time Theo had wallowed in his own, self-serving misery but it was the first time he’d done it with clarity. He hated every minute of it. 

Theo used to see himself as a martyr, he supposed, as he sat smoking on the stoop outside the shop. It was another rainy summer day and the humid air clung to him, unbidden. Maybe once he would’ve thought himself right or just in his anguish but now he just hated himself.

What made it worse was watching Hobie tip-toe around him and treat him so gently. 

“You don’t have to be so kind to me about this,” Theo said, fed up with himself over their shared lunch of gyros in the quiet of Hobie’s workshop. It had been two months by then, of the same misery. Summer was taking its last vengeance on the city. 

Hobie glanced up at him and slowly dusted his hands free of crumbs, considering. “Theo, I know how it is to nurse a broken heart,” he’d said gently. “You take all the time you need.”

It was a stupid time for a revelation but it felt like as good a time to have any. Was this a broken heart? Truly, it must be, though it hurt more than when Pippa had rejected him with her letter or when his engagement to Kitsey had dissolved to ash. 

Boris had been gone from his life before, Theo reasoned in the dark later that night but that had been different, hadn’t it? When Boris had stolen more than that kiss it was Theo that had stepped away from him. It was Theo who had stepped away and really, had he even really realized the depth of what laid between them?

Theo knew it now. He was drowning in it.   
  
The call was difficult to make. He didn’t know if Boris’ number would even be the same or that Boris would even pick up. Theo stared at his phone for an hour with Boris’ name glaring up at him, heart heavy in his chest. He thought about just texting instead but Boris’ last words to him echoed in his head taunting him. 

He let out a slow breath and finally pressed the call button and listened to it ring and ring and ring before the voicemail picked up. It was what Theo deserved but it hurt the same. 

“Hey,” he said after letting out a shuddering breath, staring at the end of the cigarette in his fingers he’d let burn to an ember. All the words that had been crowding in his head for the past four hours of prepping for this call had vanished in an instant. “If you want to… talk… to me again, I’d like to hear from you.” Theo made a soft, frustrated noise and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead with a sigh. “I sound so fucking stupid. Just, call me back, Boris.”

Theo ended the call, threw the phone into his nightstand drawer and forced himself to sleep. He hoped it wouldn’t be a mistake to leave such a pathetic message. 

In the morning and the following week, anger blistered at his heels. Theo did his best to hate Boris for the continued chasm of silence between them but it was all directed inward. This was a ruin of Theo’s own creation. 

He was prepared by Friday, almost exactly a week later from his pitiful call, to accept this as his new reality. There was still a piece carved out of him but he was resigned to it now.

The stool under Theo felt real for the first time in a long time and he was perched on it, leaned over the counter, and stared at the Times when the doorbell rung as a customer stepped in. “Hello,” he called distantly, not bothering to look up. 

Under the feet of the customer, the floor creaked as the person meandered through the store until they stopped before Theo. Annoyed but carefully hiding it, he pressed his thumb to where he stopped in his article, and finally glanced up. 

“Theo,” Boris said, his mouth a tight line.

Theo felt his mouth go dry, taking the sight of Boris in, feeling like he was struck dumb. Boris had his hands tucked into his dark jeans, his shoulders a line of tension, but there was a teasing quirk to the tip of his head as he took Theo in. 

“You look like shite,” he said as he leaned on the counter, directly into Theo’s space.   
  
“Fuck you,” Theo breathed out, feeling feverish as sweat broke out all over him. 

Boris grinned in his wicked and cruel way and Theo ached with it. “No, fuck you,” he replied back but there was nothing playful in it. He pushed himself away from the counter and dug something out of his back pocket to toss on the counter between them. “This is where I’m staying.”

The world seemed to tip with sudden vertigo as Boris moved to step away and Theo felt like he was about to fall off it before he reached out and grabbed Boris tight by the wrist. “Wait,” he croaked. “Don’t.”

“What?”

Theo felt panic rise inside him as Boris stared back at him, handsome dark brows drawn over his eyes because-- _fuck him_ \--Boris didn’t look good either. There were harsh circles under his eyes, which were slightly glassy and he was as pale as ever and Theo just wanted to fucking _hold_ him. 

“Stay here,” Theo finally said after what was probably an eternity but Boris had stood there and waited. He’d waited for Theo. 

The look Boris was giving him now was indescribable. A mix of incredulity and disbelief and… relief and Theo felt like such an idiot and such an asshole because how could he not have seen it before? 

“I can stay here?” Boris said softly, half an affirmation and half a question. Theo didn’t trust his voice and only nodded. 

A small, tentative smile broke across Boris’ face for just a flash before he gave a small nod back. “Okay,” he said and shook his hand free from Theo’s grasp. “I’ll… go get my things.” He took a step away, half turned and then glanced back before he left.

The air seemed so dead without Boris there but Theo took great big lungfuls of it. He dropped his head to the cool glass of the counter for a brief moment, smudging it with his disgusting sweat before he hurried to turn the store sign closed. When he rushed downstairs Hobie looked up at him in shock, mouth agape.

“You look afright,” Hobie said, moving away from the parcel-gilt coffee table he’d been working on. 

“Boris is back,” Theo admitted quietly and Hobie looked at him silently for a moment before he gave a small nod. 

“I thought he’d come back,” he said and reached to give Theo’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Did you say you’re sorry.”

Theo pressed his lips together and glanced away, guilty. “Not yet, Hobie,” he admitted. 

“You best.”

“He’s going to stay here,” he said after a moment and looked back, to gauge Hobie’s reaction but found nothing but fond amusement. 

“I’m fine with that, Theo,” Hobie replied back with a chuckle and turned back to his coffee table. “This is your home and your love is welcome here, too. It’s been full of your sorrow for so long…”

Theo escaped immediately after that, the emotion of Hobie’s honest words far too raw for Theo to ever face. He threw himself into the shower to wash away the misery of the past two and a half months, scrubbing himself pink. By the time he was out of the steam filled room, Theo almost felt human again. He took to picking up the bit of mess about his room and resisted the urge to pick up a bottle for some additional courage.  
  
It felt like hours by the time Boris appeared again but it was just in time for dinner. Hobie cooked them something--chicken, maybe, Theo was too distracted to be sure--he ate it mechanically, his eyes on Boris as he engaged Hobie in polite conversation. After Theo led Boris upstairs, in what he realized was uncharted territory for Boris, his hands sweaty on the handle of Boris’ luggage.   
  
“Here it is,” he said as he shouldered his door open. Boris stepped in after him with a hum and dropped his suit bag onto the floor, eyes taking in every detail in the room. 

The room that once had been so obviously Welty’s was now very much Theo’s, though the bed remained the same. He could only wonder at what Boris saw when he looked around but no comment was made. Instead they hung up Boris’ suits alongside Theo’s in his tiny closet and he tried to not let himself feel anything about this before sitting on the edge of the bed, a tentative perch. 

“Boris,” he began, abortive and stopped when Boris turned to look at him, his dark eyes so deep and serious that all the words inside of Theo dried up. Faced with the enormity of what Boris really meant to him, Theo knew he’d never be able to admit it. Admitting it meant losing Boris. 

He looked away, hands curling into fists on his thighs. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the plaster on the ceiling, the mirror over his dresser, the curtains pulled half open over his window---their suits together in his closet. “I fucked up.”

There was silence and it settled heavy, ugly between them. Theo kept his eyes on their suits, counting the seconds. Boris moved beside him but Theo didn’t dare look. He heard the flick of a lighter, smelled the sweet curl of tobacco on Boris’ exhale. 

“We both fucked up,” Boris mumbled so quietly that Theo wasn’t sure that he heard him. He turned to look finally and saw Boris staring back at him. “Let’s go to bed.”

It felt unfinished but Theo didn’t have it in him to argue.   
  
The bed was cramped with Boris in it, much too small for the two of them. Theo felt keenly aware every point of contact between them. They’d laid together like this maybe a thousand times before but it was somehow different now as they passed a cigarette between them. Boris’ eyes were serenely shut as he took a slow drag and Theo watched the swell of his chest as the smoke drew into his lungs as if he could feel the breath in himself. 

A hundred words were caught in Theo’s throat.

“How much longer are you going to stay?” was the question that came tumbling out. Theo’s fingers felt sweaty when Boris passed the cigarette back to him. He still didn’t open his eyes. 

“Mm, how much longer do you want me to stay, _zolottse_?” 

It wasn’t the answer Theo wanted. It wasn’t an answer at all, really. Theo wrinkled his nose and stared hard at Boris’ face, looking over his face for any hint to what he meant by this. There was no answer here either. Boris’ face was smooth, his eyes shut, his eyebrows unmoved, and his plush mouth laid flat. Theo was tempted to shove him onto the floor. 

“What does that mean?”

A small wrinkle appeared between Boris’ eyebrows as they drew together. “As I said, Potter, how long do you want me to stay?”

_Forever. I don’t want you to leave. Isn’t that obvious? Fuck you_. 

Theo continued to stare and Boris’ eyes remained closed. 

In a sudden flurry of movement Theo sat up and stubbed out their cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. “I don’t fucking want you to go, is that what you want me to say?” he demanded hotly as Boris finally fucking looked at him. “Because it’s the goddamned truth but it’s not realistic and it’s not our fucking reality, Boris. You live there---” Theo gestured expansively at the wall behind the headboard, “and I live here, in New York City, in this furniture shop, and this is where I will always be.

“So how long do I want you to stay? Another day? A week maybe? I don’t know how fucking long you can?” he continued on, chest heaving as unspent emotions boiled over.

Boris had sat up during Theo’s rant, the sheets pooling in his lap. There was an amused look in his eyes as he watched Theo and it only served to make Theo feel angrier and entirely stupid when he was finished.   
  
“What the fuck, Boris?”

“I can stay a month.” Theo looked at him in naked disbelief. “Maybe more. As long as you could stand it.” 

The urge to shove Boris came over Theo again and he took hold of Boris by his hair, gripping right enough to hurt and Boris hissed through his teeth in complaint. Theo leaned in close, the bridge of his wire frames pressed against Boris’ brow bone. 

“You can’t joke about things like this,” he said, his voice shaking with anger. 

“I am not joking, Theo.” Boris’ own voice, by contrast, was steady and calm. Theo wanted to hate him but he couldn’t. He was giving Theo everything he ever wanted. Always, always giving. 

Theo was so afraid it was a lie. So sure that this would be the one time if was untrue. He kept telling himself _he took it from you, your bird. he took the Goldfinch.  
_

But so long ago that had stopped being a worthwhile excuse. It has stopped holding any weight.   
  
Because Theo would have done exactly the same. 

If Boris had come to him and held out something to him and so plainly said “ _this it is it, this is everything to me. this is everything I hold dear."_ Theo would have stolen it too. Maybe even sooner than Boris had. He may have even taken it out of Boris’ hands right then and there. 

He drew away but didn’t take his hands from Boris' hair but his hold gentled. 

“I don’t understand, Boris.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Boris said and there was something a little sad in his eyes even as he smiled. “I thought we were supposed to be the smart one of us two, no?”

“You’d really stay here for me?”

“Theo, you fucking idiot, I’d do anything for you,” Boris said and the calmness was no longer there and Boris was gripping Theo’s wrists now, tight enough to grind the bone. “And I’m tired of this back and forth I just want--” he choked off and Theo ached, desperate to know what it was Boris wanted. Desperate for an end to this melodrama. “I want it to just be us. Always. Like it was, like it is when we are together but everyday.”

There were questions Theo wanted to ask--Astrid, Boris’ work, Boris’ children, promises Theo still had to the Barbours--but all of them hardly seemed to matter in this moment. Later it would matter. Later it would be a fight, undoubtedly. Theo would want his answers then, the ones he deserved. Right now he felt pure relief and a strange satisfaction, almost borderline to pure bliss reminiscent to his very first high. 

He gripped eagerly onto the feeling and leaned forward again and pressed his forehead to Boris’ and just breathed the same air with him. 

“I want you to stay,” Theo half said, half pleaded. He wanted to admit that every time Boris left now it hurt Theo more and more. He wanted to admit how much it meant that Boris had even started to show up at all. That he had started to call in between each trip just to talk.

How much he really did love Boris. 

“Then I’ll stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Boris calls Theo золотце or zolottse meaning "golden one" 
> 
> \-----
> 
> there it is! the end, it's over. I'm done. 100 years and 1 quarantine later I have finally finished this. I hope it's what everyone hoped for. but before I go...
> 
> first: please go read the entire Siken poem at the beginning and tell me if it's not Theo/Boris and if it doesn't make you want to yell yourself hoarse (in fact just buy Crush, tbh, and do your gay self a favor then throw your hands into the river)
> 
> second: I want to thank everyone for every kudo, comment and bookmark on my previous works for this series. it is so, so appreciated!!!!


End file.
